


Car? Home? Baby....

by StephTheFangirl



Series: Just Winchester Things [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 16:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8334115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StephTheFangirl/pseuds/StephTheFangirl
Summary: The Impala was never just a car to the Winchesters. Baby was a home, a friend, a companion, a constant in their hectic lives, and so much more. But what exactly does she mean to each of the Winchesters?





	

April 24, 1967.

The date would seem un-special to most people, but to the Winchesters it was everything. The day that Baby was born. Perhaps 'born' is the wrong word. Maybe 'built' is more fitting. The real birth of Baby came in late 1973 when John bought her.

But to most people, she's just a car. Just a random car, boring, black, standard in every way. Some younger age people would say she was 'too old' and 'uncool,' whilse car enthusiasts would (and do) stare after the signature 60's-style car.

But to John Winchester she was a new beginning. A way to move on from his service in Vietnam. A way to show love instead of war. He promised Mary a car, and he found Baby. She was the start of his brand new life with the love of his life.

A decade later, it became a new start for him again when his wife burned. The car became his new home, and a means to avenging her unjust death.

For Mary, the car was a symbol of John's love for her. Thinking of all the dates, all the nights, all the good night kisses, and all the love felt in that car when they were young, she always smiled.

When she died, her heaven was filled with memories in that beautiful car; a car that became like a second home to her. A beautiful thing she loved second only to her family.

And when she returned to the world of the living 33 years later, it was that car that made her feel like she belonged again. Like there was hope for her not to feel like an awkward side character in the story of her sons' lives, but to find her place in the hunters' world once more. And it was that car that brought her happiness when all she could feel was sadness: over missing her sons growing up, over them being hunters, over John's death, over Sam being missing, over the whole damn tragedy that was their lives, that could have been prevented if only she hadn't made the deal. If only she hadn't gone into Sam's nursery. If only... (Because yes, self -doubt and -semi-loathing is an inherited trait on Sam and Dean's parts. But they don't get it from John. They get it from their mother.)

Of course we all know what Baby is to Dean. Since he was 4, she was his home. The one constant, besides Sam, in his hectic life. He loved that car, almost as much as he loved Sammy. Every time he was on the brink of dying, whether it be going to hell or killing Amara, she was one of his priorities. And she always went to Sam. Because he was the only one who truly understood what that car meant.

And Dean loved her even more after going back in time. To know that he was the reason she ever came into his dad's possession made him feel even more proud to call Baby his. Because she was, in more ways than one, his.

Sammy felt a deeper connection to Baby than even Dean. She's the only home he remembers. He never had the apple pie life Dean had, so she was his home in every single way until he left for Stanford.

And even on that night, when he stormed out of whatever crappy motel, b&b, or abandoned house they were staying in for whatever case it might have been, he was sure to go out to the car, say goodbye, and thank her for being his home.

Sam could feel his bond to that car work on him in 2010. If he didn't, the world would have been destroyed by Satan. Hurting Dean couldn't pull Sam out of the devil's grasp, nor could banishing Cas, nor seeing his demonic once-thought-of best friends being slowly killed by Lucifer. What did pull him out was memories of Baby. Seeing those Lego bricks in the air vent that Dean stuck in there when they were little. Seeing the green army man he stuck in the ash tray as a kid. Baby put him in control, and that beautiful black '67 Impala saved the world in doing so.

But what about the other Winchesters? The honorary ones?

Certainly Castiel loves the car. It is one of Dean's most distinctive features. If he ever needs to find Sam or Dean, his best bet is to find the car, since the two are smart enough to ward themselves.

And Baby has been host to some of Cas' most important moments. Dean coddled him in that car after his traumatizing time when he first became human. Not to mention that car, that was so very Dean comforted him when he believed Dean to be dead.

Not to mention Cas would always love the car for the simple fact that she had watched over the boys since they were born, long before he knew who they were. He would forever be indebted to her for that, for protecting Sam, and especially Dean.

Charlie sure as hell loved that car. If she saw it anywhere she knew two things: there's a monster to kill, and she'd get to see her older brothers again. And both of those were good news in her opinion.

Yes, the Winchesters do love Baby. She could never be just a car. She is everything to the Winchesters.

Some say the Winchesters' story began November 2, 1983, on Sam's six month birthday, when Mary burned. But really their story begins the moment John bought Baby, under the influence of Dean. The beginning of everything, of all the moments we love, of all the good and bad, love and loss, family and friends of Sam and Dean's lives began the moment her story became entangled with theirs.

 


End file.
